Justice Committee on July 9th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

I'm going to call this meeting to order.

This is the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. We're at meeting 39, and this meeting is being televised.

Our order of reference of Monday, June 16, 2014, is the examination of Bill C-36, An Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.

In this panel we have from Sextrade101, Mrs. Perrier, a co-founding member. We have Professor Atchinson—I think I can call you professor—from the department of sociology at the University of Victoria. And by video conference we have three people: Michelle Miller from Resist Exploitation, Embrace Dignity, from British Columbia; Ms. Lang, as an individual, also from British Columbia; and Madam Dussault, a member from Prostitutes Involved, Empowered, Cogent—Edmonton.

Each group gets approximately 10 minutes.

First to start is Madam Perrier.

The time is yours.

[Bridget Perrier, Co-Founding Member, Sextrade101]

Aanii. First I'd like to acknowledge my standing here on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin First Nation.

I represent Sextrade101 and the many first nations women and girls who are enslaved in prostitution or trafficked.

My name is Wasayakwe. My English name is Bridget Perrier. I was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario and placed up for adoption. I was adopted by a good family who tried to raise me the best way possible, but as I got older the effects of colonialism, intergenerational trauma, and child sexual abuse made me a perfect candidate for prostitution.

I was lured and debased into prostitution at the age of 12 from a child welfare-run group home. I remained enslaved for 10 years in prostitution. I was sold to men who felt privileged to steal my innocence and invade my body. I was paraded like cattle in front of men who were able to purchase me, and the acts that I did were something no little girl should ever have to endure here in Canada, the land of the free.

Because of the men, I cannot have a child normally, because of trauma towards my cervix. Also, still to this day I have nightmares, and sometimes I sleep with the lights on. My trauma is deep, and I sometimes feel as though I'm frozen—or even worse, I feel damaged and not worthy.

I was traded in legal establishments, street corners, and strip clubs. I even had a few trips across the Great Lakes servicing shipmen at the age of 13. The scariest thing that happened to me was being held captive for a period of 43 hours and raped and tortured repeatedly at 14 years of age by a sexual predator who preyed on exploited girls.

My exploiters made a lot of money and tried to break me, but I fought for my life. My first pimp was a woman who owned a legal brothel, where I was groomed to say that I was her daughter's friend, if the police ever asked. My second pimp was introduced to me when I was in Toronto. I had to prostitute for money. He was supposed to be a bodyguard, but that turned out to be one big lie.

Both are out there still, doing the same thing to more little girls somewhere here in Canada.

I was able to exit prostitution and rebuild my life, and with that my education became a tool. I was recognized for my tenacity and my strength and have been able now to be an asset to my community and to my people. I am a mother, activist, and warrior woman, and now my experience may be sacrificial at times, but I am doing it for Canada's first nations women and girls who are being bought sold and are disappearing or murdered.

We must look at who is doing this. It's the men.

I have a letter, because my 19-year-old daughter's mom was murdered by Robert Pickton, and she asked me to read this to you.

Dear Standing Committee, My name is Angel Wolfe. My birth mom's name is Brenda Wolfe. My mom was murdered by Robert Pickton. Her murder was one of the first six that he was charged with. I was six years old when she was murdered and nine years old when her jaw bone was found in a pig trough. I am one of the 98 orphans who were left behind because of that monster. I do blame the Vancouver Police Department and the RCMP. I believe that Bill C-36 will save vulnerable women like my mom. I'm sickened that my mom's death has been used to legalize such indignity and sadness. I'm also sickened by the term “the Pickton bill”. It's insulting and a slap in the face to the 98 orphans, and the organizations and the pro-lobby movement should be really ashamed for speaking on behalf of the families who lost their loved ones. I blame prostitution and addiction for my mother's death, and on behalf of the 98 orphans, we do not want our mothers' deaths to be the reason prostitution is legitimized.

I will make it my mission in life to carry her story and educate people about addictions, prostitution and the murdered and the missing. Sincerely, Angel Wolfe

Bill C-36 will protect my daughters and the other young girls from predator johns who have the nerve to solicit in public. Just last week, my 15-year old niece was propositioned right outside my door.

If prostitution were such a healthy path, then why are the johns not telling their wives, girlfriends, and families that they use or have used sexual services from prostitutes?

Sextrade101 believes that prostitution is not a choice, but that it's lack of choice that keeps women and girls enslaved. We believe everyone should be shown a viable way out of the sex trade and not be encouraged to stay in it. We believe in helping people understand the full price of life in prostitution before they become involved and in helping women get out alive with their minds, bodies, and lives intact. We have been collectively afraid, raped, beaten, sold, discarded. Most of us were also children who were forgotten, neglected, abused, used, led astray, abandoned, and not protected.

Sextrade101 members and advocates are current and former prostituted women. We have a huge concern with the criminalization of prostituted women and girls. We have seen that diversion programs for prostituted women are not the only solution for everyone. There needs to be an understanding that supports must be there when exiting. Forcing support on women who are not ready to exit can set them up for failure.

Some 85% of Sextrade101 advocates and members have experienced pimp violence. This is pretty far from the picture painted by the Supreme Court of Canada, that pimps are nice guys,These pimps and johns are the problem. They're the ones who abuse and in some cases kill.

I supported my daughter throughout the missing women inquiry, and the outcome of it was this: our mothers, sisters, and daughters are not born to be used and sold for men's sexual needs. We are not commodities. Our women are sacred. They are valued and loved, and as life givers and nurturers, we are equal. Let's not forget equality in this bill.

I applaud Minister MacKay and MP Ms. Joy Smith in recognizing the inherent dangers and abuses for those who are prostituted. This is a victory for survivors and those who are stuck in the vicious cycle of indignity and pain.

As a sex trade survivor, I thank you so much for giving me the honour of speaking on behalf of the survivors of Sextrade101 and all the survivors across Canada, whether they are still in or have exited.

Chi-miigwetch.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

I'm sorry, this is a place of work. We don't allow outbursts on either side of the issue.

Thank you, Ms. Perrier, for that presentation.

Now, as an individual we will hear from Professor Atchison.

The floor is yours for 10 minutes.

[Chris Atchison, Research Associate, Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Thank you for having me here today.

I would like to begin by stating that I am not here as an advocate for any individual group, organization, or moral position on the sex industry. I believe the sex industry is incredibly complex, and that in order to understand it and develop outreach programs and policy to address the very real issues faced by some people who are in it, we must listen to the people directly involved, and we must pay attention to the wealth of rigorous empirical evidence from Canada and internationally.

It is this empirical evidence that I wish to focus my presentation on today.

I would also like to be clear from the start that I study and do research with adults who are involved in the purchase of sexual services. I do not do research with or study individuals involved in trafficking or with individuals who are involved with child sexual exploitation. I will reserve my comments for the study of adult consensual sexual services today.

I have been researching adults who purchase sexual services, or clients, and working in a supportive capacity with sex worker researchers and outreach organizations since 1995. During this time, I have been a principal investigator on three major studies of clients, two of which are the largest and most comprehensive investigations of people who purchase sexual services ever conducted anywhere.

I have also been a co-investigator on three additional studies of health, safety of off-street sex industry, and provided research, consult, or advice on six other sex industry projects.

Today I want to draw upon the results of my almost 20 years of research on adults who purchase sexual services.

I would like to address some corporate propositions or provisions of Bill C-36, the protection of communities and exploited persons act, in the process.

I would like to begin by addressing the question of whether prostitution is inherently exploitative.

Certainly, as we have seen, there are particular individuals and situations that exhibit cruel and unjust exploitative behaviours and conditions. We cannot deny that. But my research indicates that these particular individuals and situations exist in a very complex relationship within the industry, that by and large they are a smaller portion of the industry—an insidious portion, but a smaller portion. They do not represent the majority.

My research indicates that many sex workers work independently and, by extension, the clients I have spoken to maintain that they always negotiate the exchange of services for money directly with sex workers. A small percentage negotiate services through a third party.

The majority of the clients that I have surveyed provide no indication that they ever threaten, force, coerce, deceive, or abuse a position of trust or power and authority over a sex worker. This claim is supported by the research that my colleagues and my sister project, the understanding sex work project, have done.

Having said this, it is incredibly important to acknowledge that a minority of clients I have spoken to directly, and surveyed over the past 20 years, clearly exhibit exploitative behaviours, attitudes, and beliefs. Some of these include pressuring sex workers into doing something sexually that they were not prepared to do, refusing to pay for services, insulting or putting down a sex worker, making threatening gestures, threatening to destroy sex workers' property, verbally threatening or assaulting and physically restraining a sex worker. These things do happen. These things must be stopped.

Again, I emphasize that this is a minority of individuals I have talked to, and I have talked to almost 3,000 individuals who have purchased sexual services over the past 18 years.

On a second point, the assumption that all relations that occur between sex workers and people who purchase sexual services are exploitative because the balance of power is asymmetrical favouring the client, this is not supported by the accounts of clients I've surveyed. Many of the participants in my most recent study indicated that they either felt the service provider they engaged with had more control or power, or that the control or power was relatively equally distributed. A small portion identified that they had more power. Again, these findings are supported by results from my sister project that looked directly at sex workers and spoke directly to sex workers.

On the question of violence in the sex industry, in all of my studies, I've sought to understand issues and instances of violence and victimization that take place when sexual services are being sold and purchased. I think that has to be the focus of a lot of research. We need to understand it, and I have tried to understand it for the past 18 years.

The results of my two most recent large-scale investigations, with large samples of clients, have produced consistent findings when it comes to the level of self-reported violence and aggression that they report committing against sex workers. The majority of interactions that clients have with sex workers are peaceful. Having said this, again it is important to point out that a small portion of clients report having committed violent offences, as defined by the Criminal Code, against sex workers. This portion of individuals who are involved in the purchase of sex are clearly a problem.

Non-violent forms of aggression—verbal assault, conflicts that emerge from misunderstandings, lack of communication, hurried communication—appear to be far more commonplace than violent ones. Again, an interesting finding that I've had over the years is that violence and victimization are not asymmetrical. Many of the clients I've spoke to over the years have also experienced violent and non-violent victimization themselves, either at the hands of a sex worker or at the hands of an industry, owner, manager, madam, or pimp.

My more sophisticated analyses of these findings around violence reveal that the actual occurrences of violence and victimization in the sex trade vary significantly across different contexts, specifically different venues where commercial sexual transactions take place.

The street-based portion of the sex industry seems to be a context that holds the most potential for violent interactions to occur, and where concerns around safety for both sex workers and clients are the greatest. Part of the dangers involved in the street-based industry are a result of the isolated nature of the locations they are forced to move to because of their constant fear of arrest, concerns about community safety, the absence of clear and commonly understood behavioural norms and regulations, and the increased likelihood that either the worker or the client will be under the influence of drugs and alcohol. These same patterns do not appear with the same regularity in off-street settings.

Criminalizing all buyers of sexual services will make it not only result in innocent people being marked for life with the label of criminal, but it will make it significantly more difficult to properly prevent and address actual acts of violence that do occur in the sex industry under these conditions. When it comes to wanting those who engage in prostitution to be encouraged to report acts of violence and victimization, we would all agree, I think. That's paramount. If one of the aims of the proposed legislation is to encourage this reporting, then we need to make sure we do not create laws that actually discourage it from happening. Research that I have done indicates the real potential and value of clients in detecting and reporting violence and other abuses that they witness.

I am puzzled as to why we would criminalize people who are frequently in the best position to report instances of violence and victimization that they witness. Moreover, if when purchasing sex a person is engaged in a criminal activity, we have found that they are much less likely to report, or less willing to report, instances of violence. That's a consistent finding throughout all of my research.

On the assertion that demand for prostitution needs to be curbed and attitudes and behaviours of sex buyers need to be changed, the belief that demand is solely responsible for the existence of the sex industry ignores the fact that in many cases supply produces demand. It's hypocritical and discriminatory, in a society where sex and sexuality are used liberally to sell all sorts of goods and services, to criminalize the purchase of direct contact sexual services, while at the same time sanctioning the sale of such services. It's highly unlikely that such a discriminatory law would stand up to the inevitable and costly challenges under subsection 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Yet another assumption underlying the bill appears to be that demand can be curbed and attitudes and behaviours can be changed simply by criminalizing the purchase of sexual services, arresting and incarcerating and fining the people who engage in such behaviour. The results of my research indicate that such approaches simply result in displacing the behaviour to hidden and potentially more dangerous locales. Furthermore, labelling as criminal people who pay for sexual services, while at the same time legalizing the actions of people who sell such services, will create a situation that some have referred to as “the perfect crime”. People purchasing sexual services become the legitimate targets of robbery, fraud, theft, blackmail, and assault, something that we have seen sex workers experience for the past 30 years.

Finally, the issue of advertising is a very important one. This bill proposes that advertising and communications be criminalized. The findings from my research reveal that open and unrestricted exchange of information between sex workers and clients has significant implications for clients and subsequent interactions they have with sex workers. Under the proposed law, I find it hard to see how conflicts over misunderstandings or disagreements about terms of service, which are the things that result in violent and non-violent victimization, would be curbed in any way, shape, or form. Nor do I feel that under this proposed legislation we would be able to access them.

The proposal also has potentially negative implications for outreach, support services, as well as social and health research. With access to spaces where open and honest communication between sex workers and buyers is cut off, our ability to identify unsafe situations or conditions is compromised, and our ability to reach out to people is severely limited.

I'd just like to conclude by saying I believe a way forward is to take a strong look at this bill. I believe that we need to reassess the sections that criminalize the purchase of services and the advertisements. I believe that we should treat the sex industry as any other industry and regulate it through existing protocol. I recommend, as others have internationally, that regulatory harm reduction and health promotion policies be developed and implemented on the basis of the direct and active contribution of people who are actually involved in the sex industry, as well as drawing upon empirical evidence provided by the growing body of ethically and methodologically sound Canadian research that's been done in this area. I propose that the money that would have been used to detect and prosecute clients as a class be used to fund combatting the real violence and victimization in targeting the clients who do commit acts of violence and victimization.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We're now going to the video conference, and our first individual is from REED, Michelle Miller.

The floor is yours for 10 minutes, Ms. Miller.

[Michelle Miller, Executive Director, Resist Exploitation, Embrace Dignity (REED)]

Good afternoon.

I'm here representing REED, Resist Exploitation, Embrace Dignity, a faith-rooted women's equality-seeking organization that offers support to women in prostitution, provides public education, and addresses the root causes of sexual exploitation.

Over the last nine years we have worked with women who have been trafficked into the prostitution market in Vancouver from countries such as China, Mexico, Indonesia, Peru, and others. We have also supported Canadian women prostituting indoors and outdoors and those in both high-track and low-track prostitution.

It is from the perspective of a front-line anti-violence worker that I am speaking this afternoon.

Bill C-36 is a progressive, historic piece of legislation that finally dares to criminalize the source of harm in prostitution, the johns, and largely decriminalizes those being exploited.

The bill contains many assertions to be applauded. The preamble to the bill clearly affirms the inherent violence of prostitution, the social harm caused by the commodification of women's bodies, the disproportionate impact of prostitution on women and girls, and the fact that the demand for paid sex fuels the prostitution market.

Buyers will face criminal sanctions, the financial benefit from the prostitution of others is illegal, and you have pledged funds to help women exit prostitution. We affirm the steps you have taken to frame prostitution as a form of violence against women, and are encouraged that you do not accept prostitution as inevitable. Bravo.

At the same time we are concerned that section 213 of the Criminal Code, which allows for the continued criminalization of women selling sex, undercuts the intent of the bill. While selling sex is otherwise decriminalized throughout Bill C-36, it is considered illegal if the solicitation happens anywhere in public near where one can reasonably expect to find persons under 18.

We at REED are concerned that section 213 allows broad loopholes through which prostituted women can be criminalized and subject to further vulnerabilities, undercutting the stated intent of the bill.

We are in support of Bill C-36, but recommend that section 213 be removed.

I want to talk just a little bit about why we affirm the bill, and then I want to talk about why we're concerned about section 213.

First, why we support asymmetrical criminalization. Prostitution is a form of violence against women. Women should not be penalized for their own exploitation; rather, those perpetrating and benefiting from it should be criminalized. Prostitution is the sexualized subordination of women and hinders women's equality.

In crass economic terms, the sex industry operates as a market based on supply and demand. There is a demand for paid sex and exploiting the vulnerability of women and girls creates the supply for this market. Women and girls suffering from racial discrimination, the effects of residential schools and colonization, poverty, sexual assault as children, and other, and developmental issues such as fetal alcohol syndrome, are coerced into being sold to men for sex.

Pimps are shrewd businessmen. Make no mistake, they know exactly who to target and how to approach them. From what we know from supporting women at REED, and from studies done as well, the overwhelming majority of women are recruited into prostitution at below the age of 18. We see it all the time. Most often their entry into prostitution was preceded by repeated trauma.

According to research by Susan Nadon and others in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence and other academic studies, and the first-hand accounts of women, the majority of prostituted women report a history of childhood sexual abuse. As feminist writer, Andrea Dworkin, has said that “incest is boot camp” for prostitution. Childhood sexual abuse damages a child's sense of self, normalizes forced sexual contact, and teaches them that their bodies do not belong to them, thus reducing their threshold to seeing themselves as sellable.

Whether it's high track or low track, in a brothel or on the street, or perhaps in pornography that someone might view from the privacy of their own home, women in prostitution are seen as body parts. Their feelings and person do not matter.

The essence of Bill C-36 goes a long way to recovering the humanity and dignity of women, and of men. Frankly, I think the humanity and dignity of men is diminished when society condones their behaviour by not holding them accountable for violence against women. We need to expect more for men and more from men. I invite you to join me in this.

REED works throughout metro Vancouver, but certainly in the downtown east side it is not uncommon to see men in minivans on their way to work at 8 o'clock in the morning, sometimes with a child's car seat in the back, cruising the alleyways on the way to work, looking for a quick $5-to-$10 blow job from a severely sick and addicted woman. The power differential is horrific, but the sense of inequality and male entitlement is the paradigm of prostitution, even though it doesn't always present itself in such stark visible contrasts as this interaction does.

Research has focused a great deal on women in prostitution, who they are, what happens to them, and how they might recover from the trauma. All of these are critical questions.

But who are the men buying the bodies of women to have sex in or on, and what do we know about them, particularly their attitudes toward women? How do they feel about women? We have two decent sources of information: the handful of academic studies done on men who buy sex, but also what they themselves report on prostitution review forums online—direct first-hand data. For those of you who don't know, these are online forums where men discuss and review the women they have bought in prostitution.

Unfortunately, I am unable to tell you in this professional setting what most of them say, as it is degrading and violent, which is telling in itself. However, I will share with you one snippet that I read on a forum yesterday. Don't worry; it's okay to say on TV. One man gave a consumer report of a woman by saying this: “You can make her your sex toy or whatever you want, if you can crack her”.

Roughly 99% of research in the field has been done on prostitutes, and 1% has been done on johns, yet buying sex is so pervasive. In a rigorous empirical study done in Boston, in 2011, the research team reported that they had a shockingly difficult time locating men who really didn't buy women. The use of pornography, phone sex, lap dances and other services has become so widespread that the researchers were forced to loosen their definition in order to get a control group of a hundred people. They finally had to settle on the definition of non-sex buyers as the following: “men who have not been to a strip club more than two times in the past year, have not purchased a lap dance, have not used pornography more than one time in the last month, and have not purchased phone sex or prostituted women”.

What did they find out? Sex buyers were nearly eight times as likely as non-sex buyers to say they would rape a woman if they could get away with it.

This is also echoed in a solid 2009 study published by Eaves, in London, who found that the more accepting sex buyers were of prostitution, the more likely they were to also accept cultural myths about rape, such as, “women say no but they really mean yes”, and “a woman who dresses provocatively is being asked to be raped”.

Sex buyers, in the Boston study, used significantly more pornography than non-sex buyers, and three-quarters of them said they received their sex education from pornography. Over time, as a result of their prostitution use, sex buyers reported that their sexual preferences changed and they sought more sado-masochistic and degrading acts.

Sex buyers often prefer the licence that they feel they have with prostituted women. I quote: “You are the boss—the total boss”, said one john. “Even us normal guys, we want to say something and have it done, no questions asked. No, I don't feel like it. No, I'm tired. Unquestionable obedience. I mean, that's powerful. Power is like a drug.”

Sex buyers repeatedly commented that they liked the power relationship in prostitution. One of the women who we have supported at REED was told by her pimp to act like she spoke less English than she did so she would increase the power differential in the act, and that men wanted to buy women who were more vulnerable.

They're seldom lonely, and the majority are married or in a committed relationship. Many johns view their payment as giving them unfettered permission to degrade and assault women. One reported, “You can find a ho for any type of need—slapping, choking, aggressive sex—beyond what your girlfriend will do.” This is direct data from the johns themselves.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

You need to wrap up, Ms. Miller, your time is up.

[Michelle Miller]

Okay.

Prostitution is a form of violence against women and women should not be penalized for their own exploitation. Rather, those perpetrating and benefiting from it should be criminalized.

Just briefly, we're concerned about the loophole in Bill C-36 that the new section 213, where women can be criminalized. We found that involvement in the criminal justice system is a really significant barrier for women exiting prostitution and for seeking help. It stigmatizes them and, more importantly, it acts as a barrier to their finding employment, and it disrupts their lives and their families' lives, including those of their children. Here I'll refer to Peter MacKay's hierarchy of vulnerability, that children are more vulnerable than prostituted women.

In summary, Bill C-36 is a progressive, historic piece of legislation that finally dares to criminalize the source of harm in prostitution—the johns—and decriminalizes those being exploited. We're in support of Bill C-36, but recommend that the new section 213 be removed from the bill.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you very much for that presentation.

Our next presenter, as an individual, is Ms. Lang.

[Georgialee Lang, As an Individual]

Thank you.

My name is Georgialee Lang. I'm a lawyer in Vancouver. I was one of the many lawyers that were in the Supreme Court of Canada in June of 2013 arguing in the case of Attorney General v. Bedford, the prostitution case.

I was one of the lone voices that sought to urge the Supreme Court of Canada not to strike down the law, not to legalize prostitution, and my reasons are as follows.

Respect for human dignity is one of the underlying principles upon which Canadian society is based. We know the following from the Rodriguez decision of the Supreme Court of Canada:

That respect for human dignity is one of the underlying principles upon which our society is based is unquestioned.

Further, our Canadian government, in 1949, signed on to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. One of the key principles that we signed onto was this:

Whereas prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community

Prostitution is simply a practice that arises from the historical subordination of women and the historical right of men to buy and exchange women as objects for sexual use. This practice is a disgraceful assault on human dignity. But prostitution not only harms the women and the girls involved, it also entirely undermines the social fabric of Canada. It affects more than those who practise or purchase services. It affects those who are prostituted against their will, it supports a network of interconnected criminal activity, and it forms societal attitudes that devalue an entire category of Canadians.

Now we ought to be proud because our Canadian history underscores Canada's rejection of exploitive behaviour from the decision to compensate the aboriginal victims of residential schools to our denunciation of human trafficking and child prostitution, but to legalize prostitution is to reverse the trajectory that promotes the equality of all persons and embraces the inherent dignity of each person.

Perhaps the best example that the harms inherent in prostitution are not alleviated by legalization is the research from the State of Victoria in Australia, where prostitution was legalized in the 1980s. The research results of Dr. Sheila Jeffreys and Dr. Mary Sullivan, both from the University of Melbourne, and Dr. Janice Raymond, indicates the following.

First of all, the object of legalizing prostitution was harm minimization. Of course, that parallels what the court said in Attorney General v. Bedford. There were safety issues at stake.

It was said in Australia that the legalization of prostitution would assist in eradicating the criminal element, guard against unregulated expansion of prostitution, and combat violence against prostitutes. The reality is that legalization did not eliminate violence; it did not stop street prostitution; it did not provide or produce a safer work environment for women; it did not dignify and professionalize the women in prostitution; and it did not contain the expansion of prostitution. What actually occurred was that legalization in Australia led to a massive expansion of prostitution. Ironically, the growth was mainly in the illegal sector. So while Australia, in the State of Victoria, legalized prostitution, it was the illegal sector that started to grow beyond their expectations, and particularly unlicensed brothels. Once they made brothels legal, a great many people just opened unlicensed brothels.

Legalization of prostitution also did not empower individual prostitutes. The notion was that they would be able to work together as entrepreneurs in legal brothels or set up in their own homes. What happened was that large operators, that is businessmen, dominated the brothel industry. Individuals or small groups of women could not compete at all.

Street prostitution did not disappear, simply because women who work outside have a host of social problems, including homelessness, drug addiction, being underaged, or are not willing to register with brothels or to register with the government.

The legislation that was intended to eliminate organized crime instead brought with it an explosion of human trafficking. Run by international crime syndicates, licensed brothels in the state of Victoria in Australia acted as warehouses for trafficked women.

That is why I say that Bill C-36 is a step in the right direction. It is a step that recognizes that prostitution is the exploitation of women and that it is time for Canadians and our government to step in and do something about it. I applaud the Canadian government for the steps they are taking and for this bill.

I want to address the constitutionality of this new law. There are many who have said that this law won't pass muster, that it will not survive constitutional scrutiny, and that it's simply a waste of money to put this law into effect. I disagree with all of these theories.

When the court in Attorney General v. Bedford looked at the prostitution laws, prostitution was not illegal. You have to understand that they were looking at laws that curtailed certain activities that surrounded prostitution, laws that were nuisance laws. They weren't laws that made prostitution illegal.

What the court did in Attorney General v. Bedford was to determine that running a common bawdy house, which of course under our old laws was meant to prevent neighbourhood disruption and disorder.... They found that denying prostitutes the safety associated with working in a permanent indoor location was grossly disproportionate to neighbourhood disruption, which is what the law curtailed.

In general, the former prostitution laws were designed to combat the public nuisance aspects of the sex trade. It's much too trivial an objective to justify violating prostitutes' charter rights.

The preamble to Bill C-36 sets much broader goals—nothing less than fighting “the exploitation that is inherent in prostitution” and protecting “human dignity and the equality of all Canadians”. No longer is the goal to prevent neighbourhood disorder, or disruption, or nuisance. We have a much broader goal.

Not only does the preamble of our new bill assert that Parliament seeks to denounce and prohibit exploitation and inequality, but it also sets out the aim of encouraging “those who engage in prostitution to report incidents of violence and to leave prostitution”.

Madam Justice McLachlin, in the Attorney General v. Bedford case, said this. In striking down the laws, the nuisance laws, the court made it clear in its decision the following:

That does not mean that Parliament is precluded from imposing limits on where and how prostitution may be conducted.

That's what Bill C-36 does. Bill C-36 speaks to the concept that the exploitation is a terrible assault on women and children and some boys and men. It cannot continue. This bill, I say, deals with the constitutional aspects. It provides limitations on where and how. In my submission, and in my respectful opinion, this bill will pass constitutional muster particularly with the new preamble.

Thank you for inviting me to speak.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you, Ms. Lang, for your presentation.

Our final presenter, by video conference, is Ms. Dussault from PIECE.

The floor is yours, Madame.

[Elizabeth Dussault, Member, Prostitutes Involved, Empowered, Cogent - Edmonton]

Thank you, Chairman, and members of Parliament, for this fantastic opportunity.

I would like to take a brief moment to point out that I have not heard MP Joy Smith ask sex workers questions regarding the comments they have shared here. I would like to extend MP Smith an invitation to ask me anything she likes, and I will answer honestly.

I would like to state that it is an honour to speak to this committee. My name is Elizabeth Dussault, and I'm 30 years old. I would like to give you a little bit of my background to aid in understanding my points of view. I have been a sex worker for the past four and a half years. I started working in Australia in the sex industry, and when I came back to Canada I continued to work on and off. While in Australia and in Canada, I have worked for an escort company as an independent escort, and worked in several brothels. I have been advocating for improved and progressive laws and better working conditions for the sex industry for two years now. I have written a document for Edmonton’s bylaw enforcement services, been in the Metro News newspaper, the Edmonton Journal, and on Citytv's Breakfast Television Edmonton.

Then Prostitutes Involved, Empowered, Cogent—Edmonton, also known as PIECE, found me and gave me a home with their amazing group of women. As a brief aside, the median age of entry into sex work among the PIECE group is 26.5 years of age. We are fighting to speak for all prostitutes because so many of these women are fearful to speak due to what happens to them when they do. Let me tell you what happened to me.

I personally have lost my two jobs at brothels, as well as being fired from my lifeguarding and swimming teacher position, for being an advocate. PIECE knows that Bill C-36 will send sex workers further into the shadows, leaving them prey to abuse, rape, and serial killers such Pickton and others. I offer you another path. I have seen full legalization and ensuing regulations that leave sex workers safe, empowered, and treated as any human being in any job. I have partaken in a society that is progressive, where the clients are respectful and educated, the general society is accepting and enlightened, and where sex workers are upstanding citizens who contribute to their society.

Bill C-36 will not do this in the slightest. What will come if this bill passes will be disastrous and dangerous, unleashing further opportunities for fear, abuse, neglect, increased exploitation, and of course more deaths. My understanding of the Supreme Court's decision was that the current laws are not constitutional. Accepting this to be true, Bill C-36 is the rewriting of old stricken laws using similar, but different, terminology. However, buying it, advertising it, having a safe haven for workers, and criminalizing anyone who might be involved in protecting them equates to making the entire business of selling sex for money virtually illegal. This is in no way a solution to prostitution.

It is a very ancient profession and is not going anywhere. Canada will never be rid of it. Opting to stay in the dark ages and pushing sex workers into unsafe environments such as not having brothels where there is safety in numbers, not allowing them to be near one another on the streets, will effectively result in harm and death. In no other controversial job does the government remove workers' rights, make their jobs more unsafe, and turn a blind eye. Quite the contrary happens.

For example, liquor, gaming, guns, oil, and diamond mining are widely debated and fought against by religious groups, extremists, and other organizations. However, the government responded in kind with legalizing, regulating, and doing everything in its power to protect the general population from the detriment that can occur if these industries run amok. Canada created establishments and made zoning rules for these industries, devised and enforced rules to keep the public and the workers safe, and then taxed and benefited from these industries. This creates jobs, helps the economy, and establishes safety for all Canadians. This is what sex workers deserve in accordance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Currently, sex workers are ostracized, neglected, and misunderstood by the government and the public. Workers are scared and fearful, even of the police who are supposed to serve and protect them. Bill C-36 will exacerbate these concerns. To me, coming from Australia to Canada and seeing the differences, the current laws here are appalling. To know that it could get even worse makes me sick to my stomach. I fear for every sex worker across Canada. I fear for every sex worker across Canada.

Since my media coverage I have been struggling to find a job in the sex industry and in respectable society. The sex industry fears hiring me because they will be arrested for their association with me. I am alienated from respectable society because I am a sex worker. I am ostracized from both sides. I said loud and proud that I choose to be a sex worker, that it exists, and that we are humans.

I have a clean criminal record. I am addiction free. I was an honour student who took all AP classes. I was also hand-picked as the only representative of my 2,000 person high school to go to Ottawa for a conference. I am an upstanding citizen who went to Grant MacEwan University majoring in political science and was selected to go to Ottawa to participate in a mock United Nations debate for a week.

I have travelled the world alone, worked for Environment Canada, Alberta Health, Telus, the University of Alberta, Grant MacEwan University, and the YMCA. I sit here now before you as a Canadian citizen, as a sex worker, and as a human imploring you to see reason and not allow this bill to go through. It will bring about chaos and death that our country does not have to endure.

Australian brothels and escort companies are run as legitimate businesses. They advertise, have open and honest discussions with their customers about services, and are zoned in specific areas away from schools and religious institutions.

I never saw a worker on the streets, as they are safe working as escorts or protected in studios. In Australia I could be open about my work and people would respond with kindness, respect, and general understanding of what I do, even if they disagreed with my choice. I have personally never met anybody who was human trafficked or underage in the industry.

I had an Australian working holiday visa, and immigration came in and checked up on me. They saw I was there by choice, had a visa, was capable of working and wished me good day.

I always felt safe and protected. I worked in a healthy, happy environment where we worked as a team and they educated me. I was even given a little red book that includes information on health issues, testing locations, consulates, and important phone numbers such as the police. It was in six different languages.

I had opportunities to get out of the industry if I wanted. I was never forced to do anything against my will. In fact I was supported to listen to my gut, be safe, and encouraged to have a healthy self-esteem and see myself as a productive member of society.

I arrived back in Canada and what I found was detestable. I expected Australia, New Zealand, and Canada to be fairly similar. What I found was disgraceful: the fear of the police, the segregation of sex workers from society, the laws implementing no drivers or security, the illegality of brothels, and the deprivation of open and honest communication.

Bill C-36 might be acceptable in Russia. However, let us be leaders along with New Zealand and Australia in a uniquely Canadian manner.

I am here today to plead with the government to do some more research, look to progressive countries, listen to people such as myself who choose to be in this industry and enjoy their work, and to look at human rights laws and give sex workers the respect they deserve.

I have seen how it can be. I have experienced an incredible model for Canada to emulate. As an educated, enlightened, and experienced young woman who at the age of 26 chose to enter into the sex industry, I appeal to your humanity. I beseech you to not move forward with Bill C-36.

I will leave you with this quote from Madam Justice McLachlin:

A law that prevents street prostitutes from resorting to safe havens...while a suspected serial killer prowls the streets, is a law that has lost sight of its purpose.

Thank you, again, Mr. Chair, and members of Parliament.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mike Wallace]

Thank you for that presentation, Ms. Dussault.

We are now off to the question and answer period of our meeting.

Our first questioner for the New Democratic Party is Madam Boivin.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you all for being with us today and for sharing your experiences and points of view. It helps us do our work.

Chief Justice McLachlin's ears must be ringing right now because just about everyone is quoting her, even though not all for the same reasons or with the same view.

My first question is for Ms. Lang.

You said that you were one of the lonely voices that was asking the Supreme Court of Canada not to strike down the law. Obviously they didn't listen to you, and I say that in a nice way, having lost a few cases here and there myself.

But what I'm wondering, though, from having read the Bedford decision, is whether you were surprised not to see more about section 15, because I'm pretty sure you must have pleaded section 15 at length in the Bedford case.

[Georgialee Lang]

No, I wasn't surprised that there was not more discussion of section 15.

Our submissions, of course, focused on the fact that the law was a reasonable limitation in accordance with the charter. Of course, that was not found to be accurate. The court said that it wasn't a reasonable limitation, and I understand that very clearly because the law was a nuisance law. As Madam Justice McLachlin said in the decision, prostitution is not illegal. This is a nuisance law, this is all out of proportion to the safety issues, and so I think that was—

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Are you telling us today then that prostitution is now illegal in Canada with Bill C-36 if it is adopted?

[Georgialee Lang]

Prostitution is illegal. Yes, it is, it will be.

It will be illegal for men to purchase sex. That's correct.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

No, but prostitution is more than just the buying.

So are you saying that you see Bill C-36 as clearly making prostitution illegal in all its aspects in Canada after the adoption of Bill C-36?

[Georgialee Lang]

Not in all of its aspects, of course, because we know from Bill C-36 that women will only be criminalized if they are selling sex in the vicinity of children, but they are welcome to sell sex in brothels, in private homes. They are welcome to sell sex anywhere there aren't children under 18, and of course—

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

So in that inference, then, would you see Justice McLachlin at a later date in the not-too-distant future saying again that prostitution is not illegal in Canada? As well, going back to what was probably the main phrase she voiced in her decision, which you quoted—sadly, not in its entirety because when you said that—

. . . the Charter does not mean that Parliament is precluded from imposing limits on where and how prostitution. . .

—which is what the legislator is trying to do with Bill C-36, you just didn't mention—

. . . as long as it does so in a way that does not infringe the constitutional rights of prostitutes.

So my question for you is, in that part of that decision, if the Supreme Court of Canada had to review Bill C-36, is it your understanding that what has been put in Bill C-36 by the Minister of Justice and his team is okay with that part of the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada?

[Georgialee Lang]

Yes, I say it is and let me tell you why, because the old law was a nuisance law. Prostitution was not illegal, only the activities surrounding prostitution, and they were all caught in that section of the Criminal Code that deals with nuisance and disorder.

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

So it's the preamble that makes you say.... Just to be clear for me, because you keep saying that it was a nuisance law, what makes you say that it is not half and half now, like part nuisance law—because of the public aspect of it when they do it in public—and the other part where they criminalize the client?

Because if it's based on the preamble, for me the preamble will be useful for the courts. If the disposition is not clear, then they'll go to the interpretation. If they don't have to go to the interpretation, they'll look at the section, at the clause inside the Criminal Code, and that's it. The preamble will not be included in the Criminal Code.

[Georgialee Lang]

I'm sorry, but I beg to differ. The preamble is a complete paradigm shift. We move from nuisance law to law that clearly says that it's the decision of Parliament that women and girls are being exploited in prostitution, and furthermore, the government is saying that we need to find a way for these women to exit the sex trade. That is a completely new paradigm from what you had when you had the arguments in Attorney General v. Bedford and there are—

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

But that's not in the Criminal Code. That won't be in the Criminal Code.

Even when you look at the title of the law, which says, “protection of communities and exploited persons act”, it's now a beast with two heads, let's say, instead of just one, like you said, as a nuisance—